Government Quotes

Los Angeles County government is a "Soviet-style system," with too many people only sort of in charge and no person sufficiently at the helm to take responsibility.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.

Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments.

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you – you know your nation is doomed.

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

Cruel people are not only people who kill innocent people with guns. Individuals who steal from government coffers to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor are grossly cruel.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.-Thomas Jefferson

When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another — except brute, physical force.

The more you can escape from how horrible things really are, the less it's going to bother you...and then, the worse things get.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?O'Brien: Of course he exists.Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?O'Brien: You do not exist.

A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

Weak emperors mean strong viceroys.

To [the government] it didn't matter what happened to the American people as long as america in the abstract was kept strong.

I can retain neither respect nor affection for government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend its immorality

The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought.

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that, in our democracy, government is us.

Sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that’s out of kings.

Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?

A government of laws, and not of men

It is dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong

Happy am I, for every time I meditate on governments, I always find new reasons in my inquiries for loving my own country.

Enforcement isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about whether government works and who it works for.

The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become....The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers.

When people are free to choose, they choose freedom

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)

for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.

All the horrors of the reign of terror were based on concern for public tranquility.

For forms of Government let fools contest. Whate'er is best administered is best.

In a democracy we sometimes have to put up with things we don't life or approve of.

Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered." (Bk2:8)

Fit to govern? No, not fit to live.

The objection to an aristocracy is that it is a priesthood without a god.

Wall Street billionaires are predicting that Roosevelt-style railroad rate regulation will sooner or later bring about financial catastrophe. [ca. 1906]

While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.

When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilence no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry.